Editor’s Pick
APRIL 23, 2012 4:39PM
George Zimmerman: I am Sorry Your Son Ran Into My Bullet
George Zimmerman was quite the contrite killer during his bond hearing. In an act of great self-sacrifice and generosity he took the stand and offered up the following apology to the family of the murdered Trayvon Martin:
Zimmerman, 28, appeared in court in a dark suit and gray tie, and, in a surprising move, took the stand. There, in a voice verging on meek, he apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old he admits he shot—but only, he says, in self-defense.
“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son,” he said to the parents, who attended the hearing in the central Florida city of Sanford, where the shooting took place. “I did not know how old he was. I thought he was a little bit younger than I am, and I did not know if he was armed or not.”As a student of language and semiotics, I would suggest that the latter part of Zimmerman's statement is particularly rich with meaning. Context is key to the analysis of language. Language also constructs meaning through unstated assumptions shared by speaker and audience; oftentimes a speaker--here being Zimmerman--can run into a crisis of communication when the listener does not share his unstated priors and worldview.
Zimmerman is part of a collective consciousness that views all black people as adults regardless of their age. Because African Americans, especially men, have no right to self-defense in their person against White authority (it is rarely mentioned that Trayvon Martin had every right to "stand his ground") all bets are off. Zimmerman is working through this logic as he basically suggests that if Martin were younger, then the presumption of being armed and dangerous may not have applied.
However, because common sense dictates that all black men are armed, at all times, and have the magical ability to transform harmless objects into guns or knives, Zimmerman was acting under a reasonable person's standard of behavior. Anyone approaching a black man would naturally assume that the latter was especially and uniquely capable of deadly force. Thus, Zimmerman's appeal to shared community norms is a basic one: anyone in his position would have reasonably and naturally assumed that a black teenager wearing a hooded sweatshirt in the rain and carrying a bag of candy is an imminent and deadly threat.
Zimmerman's statement of "apology" to Trayvon Martin's family is one of the most honest and pronounced distillations of the White Gaze and its debased view of black humanity which we as a country have witnessed in many years. If one ever wondered about the existential dilemma faced by black masculinity in American society, or was searching for an object lesson in how black folks are "niggerized," look no farther than George Zimmerman's "apology" for committing murder.
Zimmerman can assault plain clothes cops, batter his fiancée, ignore police directives, stalk innocent people, carry a weapon in violation of his vaunted "black watch" rules, and shoot unarmed people without doubt or worry. Moreover, it takes a national uproar to even have him properly investigated and eventually arrested on suspicion of having committed murder. Let a black man do the same and see what happens. It does not take a leap of faith, or radical act of imagination, to understand how divergent the outcome would be.
Ultimately, Zimmerman is a murderous clown. As such, and in keeping with the national tragedy and three ring circus that is the color line in America, Zimmerman will find martyrdom as he is a stand-in for every white conservative ever accused of racism or racial bias. During the days and weeks to come, the script will be flipped as he becomes the object of a cause celebre. In this grotesque play, George Zimmerman is the good man done wrong by the system. Trayvon Martin is simply collateral damage.
Those blacks end up dead, in jail, or lying in the morgue for days unclaimed anyway. So what is the measure of a black man's life, one that is doomed to failure, against the shining star and bright future of "good" men like George Zimmerman?
Those blacks end up dead, in jail, or lying in the morgue for days unclaimed anyway. So what is the measure of a black man's life, one that is doomed to failure, against the shining star and bright future of "good" men like George Zimmerman?
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
Everything you said in that sentence is either false or greatly exaggerated.
"Ultimately, Zimmerman is a murderous clown."
He's so murderous that after six weeks of investigation, the prosecutor's investigators were unable to come up with any definitive evidence that contradicts Zimmerman's account of what happened.
“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son,” Like it just happened to happen that this kid got "lost." A true apology would have said, "I'm sorry I killed your son."
And I'm sorry to say your post made me want to stand up and cheer - for the clarity of both thought and language.
The Martin family and Bill Cosby both seem to have the sense to realize that it doesn't matter if Zimmerman turns out to be a nice guy, &c.
Start with a horribly unjust outcome, and work backwards, and it isn't Zimmerman's personal qualities or lack thereof.
It is the fact that he was packing and simply not up to it.
We already know enough.
When he pulled the trigger, he said all that he could say. He is the least important part of the whole situation right now.
Frankly, the fact that he might be a generally ok person who was trying to be a good neighbor, etc is more of a concern than if he was just some murderous asshole.
Everything worked out just as it was structured. When things didn't work out perfectly, the black kid ended up dead.
I'm guessing that Lily will be wearing her hoodie for quite some time to come :(.
Rated for a good piece Chauncey, worthy of the EP.
George is guilty, and his lies are accumulating. The more often he talks, the fewer optional rationalizations he'll be able to spin for why he continues to contradict himself and the other evidence.
Of course what will be really interesting is the formal voice analysis and testimony regarding the question of whether it was Zimmerman or Trayvon calling for help on the 911 tape. If Zimmerman's voice is ruled out, as it was in the two informal analyses (both conducted by expert forensic voice analysts), George will be in a hopeless quandary, since he is already on record claiming it was he himself calling for help.
Anything that keeps George talking is great for the prosecution.
That's one theory. There are also other theories. Zimmerman's account -- as I understand it -- goes something like this. Zimmerman is following Martin. After the dispatcher's statement Zimmerman stops following Martin, and he loses track of him. Instead, he sets off to find a street address in order to have an address to give to police. (Where Zimmerman was located, behind the houses, there were no street addresses visible.) Zimmerman then is returning to his vehicle, at which point Martin confronts and attacks Zimmerman.
Seer: "*Zimmerman left his vehicle to approach Martin*"
He left in order to follow him, but was returning to his vehicle when Martin confronted him. This is Zimmerman's account. Even if Zimmerman approached Martin, there's nothing illegal about that.
In general, I don't see anything in the evidence (evidence, not opinion or speculation) that contradicts Zimmerman's account of the incident. According to what the prosecution's investigator said during the hearing, the prosecution doesn't have anything either.
chiron says: "George is guilty, and his lies are accumulating."
Of course they are, but they aren't really "lies." And that doesn't mean he is guilty of anything. If you were to talk about anything, eventually you would say things that appear to be inconsistent, or may even be inconsistent. That's the nature of human communication, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything at all.
chiron: "In saying in the course of his supposed apology that he thought Trayvon was only slightly younger than himself, he contradicts his 911 statement to the police dispatcher that Trayvon was a teenager."
So what? Is that significant? Maybe when he saw Martin from a distance he thought he was a teenager, and when Martin was attacking him he thought he was older. Who knows?
chiron: "And in saying that he wasn't sure whether Trayvon was armed or not, he puts in question the validity of his earlier statement that he had shot Trayvon when Trayvon had gone for Zimmerman's gun."
So if Martin was "going for his gun," that means that Martin didn't have the gun, right? And that means he was "unarmed."
chiron: "If Zimmerman's voice is ruled out . . . "
What if it isn't? What if it turns out that Zimmerman was screaming for help?
Yet, in only four days, between Friday, March 16, and Monday, March 19, inclusive, at least 41 people were shot in Chicago. That’s right . . . . at least 41.
Most of these victims were black – just like Trayvon. A mother and her one-year old child were wounded – both black. A six-year old child was killed – also black. Ten apparently have died. Almost all of them black.
Some of this violence has been tied to Latin (let’s take a closer look at Zimmerman’s heritage) gang aggression against black youth. However, if history holds, 94% of this brutality will be proved to be black-on-black. There are a dozen, unarmed, innocent acting, Trayvon Martin victim stories in that black-on-black group – again, in just one weekend.
Where is Chauncey’s outrage over this?
The answer, I suspect, is that there just isn’t as much payoff for his brand of racism in lamenting one black killing another, as there is when a "white" kills a black. Nonetheless, no matter who did the shooting, blacks are dead.
To Chaucey, there is apparently a big difference between what happened in Sanford, Florida and what happened in Chicago, Illinois. To me each case is equally, and utterly, tragic. Nevertheless, to Chauncey, I am probably the racist.
Nope, it doesn't matter to Chauncey unless the assailants of his black compatriots are white. Apparently, black deaths are not worth the effort at the keyboard otherwise.
Your entire comment was off-point. It's truly a stupid argument to offer other incidents and accuse the author of bias and indifference because, in a post about the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident, he didn't mention the other incidents. You never feel compelled to offer a broader, "balancing" viewpoint of anything you say, so add mindlessly hypocritical to mindlessly irrelevant.
That's about the most moronic attempt at disputation that could be offered, as none but a moron would offer it. It's a braindead and horribly whiny attempt at guilt-by-disassociation.
You erect something more resembling a embryonic adobe man...straw and manure combined...and then beat it down.
I have warned you that such imbecilic self-gratification can cause you to need glasses. That you persist in offering such lame arguments makes me wonder if you're not already using a Braille keyboard.
What most us would concede is that under those circumstances he had a right to use a gun to prevent harm to himself, but no right to inflict harm on his attackers once that threat had passed. And shooting a man in the back is never likely to be a winning strategy.
Such distinctions, however, are drawn here in hindsight and in the clear absence of threat. What any of us might do under such circumstances is very hard to predict.
What does this have to do with Zimmerman? Not much, unlike Goetz, Zimmerman went looking for trouble, and he found it. Watching this pathetic creature on television, I couldn't help but feel a bit of pity for him -- a grown-man still playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians.
The only thing good that can possibly come out of this tragedy is the repeal of Stand Your Ground laws, but given the intransigence and the overwhelming political clout of the NRA, I doubt even that little is possible.
Chauncey is black ans as such in permanent danger of being killed himself.
How long does it take the American society to finally realize that Blacks are Humans with equal rights?
your account of Zimmerman and the death of Trayvon Martin is interesting news.
Zimmerman's argument about the assumption of Trayvon's age are fake.A kid is a kid,even if he is 17 years old.
It is a tragedy indeed because Zimmerman's life is ruined and that of his family as well but the worst part of this story is that playful,innocent Trayvon is dead,and this weighs much more than anyone of the Zimmerman family will have to face.
The loss of a child due to murder is a burden that can affect a family in a most dramatic way.
Peace to Trayvon's family.
Thank you,Chauncey for this new information on the subject.
Rated
Posts on OS like these are as idiotic as Trayvon’s apparent belief that his attendance at school was for something other than an academic education. By making Trayvon’s death an issue of race, they demean Trayvon; because they reduce the entirety of Trayvon Martin to just one thing. He was a black, killed by a “white”.
To Chauncey, the OS editor, and all who agree with what Chauncey wrote, Trayvon’s death is merely a means to an end. That's all.
They don’t care about Trayvon. To them, Trayvon is merely a tool.
A black youth was killed by a guy who claims to be white. That's all the use they have for Trayvon -- his blackness against the lethal force administered by a white.
These shallow-thinking racists make Trayvon a symbol for what they believe (and hope) to be a continuing, pervasive, racial animus in America. Trayvon is their most recent path to victimhood, as evidenced by these pathetic attempts to extend the national discourse down the road of division and hate.
If it were otherwise, then there would be equal lamentations for (and similar, silly analyses of) the violent deaths of all black youths, especially those far more innocent than Trayvon. In fact there would be equal lamentations (and similar, blah blah) for all youth who died by violence.
However, this is not what one finds on Chauncey’s blog. Nope, the only death (black or otherwise) that matters here these days is . . . . . (wait for it) . . . . Trayvon’s. What’s worse, Chauncey’s racism is so one-sided that had Trayvon been white and Zimmerman been black, then I have no doubt that his posts would have claimed Zimmerman the victim and Trayvon the aggressor.
Yes, Chauncey is a self-described student of language and signs. With him around, we don’t need juries; we don’t need facts; all we need are his interpretations of the context in which opinions are so freely and easily given about Trayvon these days. Chauncey is our guide to the “richness” of their meaning.
However, Paul, those of you who buy what Chauncey sells can find some relief from this criticism in the similar stupidity of the President’s statement that his son would have looked like Trayvon. When he made this claim, our chief executive must have forgotten for a moment that he is a half-white. His son, presuming Michelle to be the mare, would be one-quarter white – almost like George Zimmerman.
Yeah, . . . . now that I think about it, . . . . President Obama's son might have looked like Trayvon. However, his white racial heritage might have been much closer to that of George Zimmerman's.
Chauncey, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Also, my understanding is that, in the past, Zimmerman had called 911 for boys younger than Trayvon, crazy young ages like 8 or 9.
I get the points from those who want this situation to not be about race. Except that it is. Because if these people were white or were both black or if the shooter had been black, the shooter would have been in jail from the getgo. That's how it's about race.
That the Zimmerman apologists can't see this is saddening. Racism is a slippery little thing. One can easily fool oneself, apparently, about possessing it.
You're quite right, Deb. It matters enough to understand it. Z's apology has nothing to do with the passive voice. The passive voice cannot be used with intransitive verbs, e.g., "am." Maybe you should be learn more about English before commenting on it.
I'm sure he is indeed sorry. Trayvon's age - and skittles - are making it very difficult indeed to sell to the public at large his self defense claims. How will his defense team sell it to a jury?
Keep up the good work!
The only legitimate question is whether Z's arrest would not have occurred without the racial outcry. That question has now been rendered moot, but you'd never know it by the tirades that are being voiced by Chauncey and other one-issue types who are determined to decide the case themselves rather than in court.
That effort is genuine mob rule, and I would think that Chauncey and other blacks would have had enough of that.
yes. yes...this is exactly what is going on....the protective response (toward Zimmerman) by society has been shocking and appalling and I haven't been able to understand how so many could get this SO WRONG. This line is an "ah-ha!" moment for me. Thank-you for this powerful piece. This should go viral ~
For once in my life, I'm with the feds on this one. ;)
back to my WIP
And Uncle Chris - "mare"? WTF? REALLY? REALLY?
You didn't respond to my valid observation that your whiny hypocritical comment was as off-point as it was irrelevant. Your response now is also off-point and irrelevant, but at least your Straw/Manure man is given another starring role in "Off-Point--The Sequel."
Your follow-up comment was even more a rambling stream-of-unconsciousness than the first. I can only extract your reference to "academic education" as a comical outcome and leave the rest to compost.
I'll only add that, after many exchanges, you still never address precisely what I say. You extract my position from the same place you store your knowledge--your ass--and then proceed to argue with your creation. The funniest thing is even though you argue against your Straw/Manure Man, he gets the better of the exchange most of the time. That's probably because you simply don't know shit.
Paul, this post is not about the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident. I wish it were, but it's not. This post is about constructing a narrative in which everything is viewed through the lens of race. In this narrative facts and evidence don't matter; the author selects a handful of facts and builds his narrative around those.
In this post the Zimmerman side of the case has been almost totally removed, and the little that remains is allowed in only to give the author something to ridicule. In this post Zimmerman is not a person but a symbol of white people, who are invariably unjust and profoundly racist. Forget "innocent until proven guilty.' For Chauncey, Zimmerman is guilty -- must be guilty -- because he is "white."
And how reprehensible we white people are! But not to worry, because Chauncey will tell us how reprehensible we are, as he peers behind the surface of language into our "collective consciousness." And in this consciousness, white folks view "all black people as adults regardless of their age." White people believe that African-American men have "no right to self-defense" against "White authority." White people's "common sense dictates that all black men are armed, at all times, and have the magical ability to transform harmless objects into guns or knives."
Chauncey goes on to talk about the "White Gaze and its debased view of black humanity" in which black people get "niggarized." Eventually Chauncey wraps things up by concluding that Zimmerman is a "murderous clown," who functions as a stand-in for "every white conservative ever accused of racism or racial bias."
Yes, it would have been nice had Chauncey's post been about the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident. Had it been, we might have read something about the blood running down the back of Zimmerman's head, or about his broken nose, documented in his medical records. We might have read about an eyewitness who saw Zimmerman (the "man in a red jacket") who was on the ground, yelling for help, while being beaten by a fellow who was on top of him.
And if Chauncey were particularly energetic, we might have read about the New Black Panthers' "reward" for his capture. We might have read about the attempts by "celebrities" to terrorize him and his family by tweeting their home addresses to their "followers." We might have read about the many death threats against Zimmerman's and his family's lives, to the point that his family were afraid to appear in person at the bond hearing, and George himself had to wear a ballistic vest under his suit at the hearing. And in THAT context, Chauncey might have described Zimmerman's "apology" as a small attempt to humanize himself, after having been demonized for six weeks.
But we didn't read about any of that, because this post is not about Zimmerman or Trayvon, or the incident that led to Trayvon's death. This post is about race-baiting -- the White Gaze, the white conservatives, and the white consciousness, and the actual facts of the case are only relevant inasmuch as they support the racial narrative.
His cowardice led him, once confronted by Trayvon, to reach for his cell phone out of fear of Trayvon and thereby exposing his firearm. Why would he reach for a phone rather than identifying himself as the neighborhood watch patrol?
The answer is that this man is a simple-minded coward who should have been called on his actions long before he racked up over forty-five 911 calls within the past 12 months.
If Black Males have short fuses, it cannot be attributed to genetics.
It should be recognized as the logical response to centuries of unfair treatment followed up by legislation and the socially corrupt system that is in place to deny resources to same Black Males.
Apparently, the system works as designed, and it's obvious to me that the only way to defeat this system of oppression is to change the way we interact with it.
"You're quite right, Deb. It matters enough to understand it. Z's apology has nothing to do with the passive voice. The passive voice cannot be used with intransitive verbs, e.g., "am." Maybe you should be learn more about English before commenting on it."
I never said his comment had anything to do with the passive voice. You made that leap of conclusion all on your own. Do you do that with everything? ... Zimmerman's comment was a half-assed attempt at an apology. Period. ... Now, run along and bully someone else.
I didn't comment on this post, per se. I was poking some fun at Chris for offering an off-point generic argument that could be applied to any issue and be as irrelevant.
His response was to finally address the post, with whatever his argument. I didn't comment on his argument, I simply noted he attached opinions to me that I did not offer and argued against those opinions as if he were arguing with me. I didn't mention the opinions/assertions in the post, I was simply ridiculing an imbecilic form of self-gratifying dil-dodo disputation. Ol' Chris ain't too whippy, as some old-timers say.
Now I will comment on the post.
I am not a fan of finding national societal trends in every case that may or may not reflect them. I would not append a general and true aspect of racial perceptions to Zimmerman, the individual. In fact, I think trying to find a racial dimension beyond what can be known by Zimmerman's words and actions is an unneeded distraction. I am not black, but I do understand there can be 2 valid perceptions, subjectively.
From what is known now, the odds are in favor of Zimmerman's acquittal, less favorable on a lesser charge, and almost surely not 2nd d. murder. This in spite of the fact he acted irresponsibly and is, in my opinion, directly responsible for what happened, in total.
There are some knocks against Zimm's story that *may* convince a jury there was a gap between his fearing death or bodily harm and the moment he pulled the trigger. There may be forensic evidence that would support that as well. There might be an accumulation of logical inferences and beyond reasonable doubt but circumstantial evidence that would cause a jury to want to make sure some penalty was paid.
We both know that as it stands with available information and the "best" eyewitness' account, Zimmerman would be held immune under the SYG law. This is because the law is grossly inadequate, so my anticipated disappointment is in the law, not national social trends.
I think Zimm's apology was in poor taste and am certain it was part of the defense strategy, which robs it of any hint of sincerity.
I focus on the singular incident, drawing assertions and suppositions based on what I think is justice and what the law sees as justifiable. If I were writing about latent, inherent, unresolved, subliminal or overt racism or racial aspects, trends and known manifestations of any or all of that, I would not tie it to this particular case. I think that, usually, placing the weight of that on any one person's shoulders is a bit too "scapegoatish." However, the reality is people on both or all sides of that battle will read into or extract from this incident a wider argument. I won't say that's good or bad, just natural and expected.
But that's me. Others mileage may vary.
Overall, I'm with ol' Don Rich. Let's have a trial and see what happens.
You ignorant slut. . . .
Your great capacity to avoid Chauncey’s racism can only be admired. In this post of less than 700 words, a footnote by Mr. DeVega's standards, Chauncey manages to use words like “black”, “white”, “nigger”, etc. in their various forms nearly 20 times. Chauncey links such terminology to the Trayvon Martin case with sentences such as:
“Zimmerman is part of a collective consciousness that views all black people as adults regardless of their age.”
In spite of those broad hints, you still don’t get it Paul. All of the comments that have pointed to Chauncey's character flaw mean nothing to you. You seem to have an unlimited ability to ignore the obvious.
Our one-trick pony here is like many today who claim an allegiance to Liberalism. In order to make their points, they, like you, cannot look at the big picture. They must argue each issue within a separate, well-specified, limited, highly distorted framework. Otherwise, your arguments would not appear rational.
For example, with what object has Chauncey written this post? One goal appears to be his attempt to make the case that Trayvon’s apology was less than sincere.
Read the post again, Paul. Given the framework within which his argument is constructed on this point, can ANY possible apology from George Zimmerman exist that Chauncey would have found acceptable?
Of course not; but, then again, you probably still can’t comprehend that.
Chauncey isn’t arguing about a forest here. You don’t get that, either. Chauncey is arguing about a tree – nay, the bark of a tree – nay, the moss on the bark of a tree – nay, the COLOR of the moss on the bark of a tree in the forest.
This is why he doesn’t spend anytime at the keyboard when 41 blacks are shot in Chicago over the course of one weekend, of which ten die, including a six-year old black girl. These attacks were not perpetrated by whites. They were perpetrated largely by other blacks.
This makes a big difference to Chauncey, because analyzing those black deaths takes him way outside the framework of racism that Chauncey claims, and hopes, exists in America. Chauncey may not be able to live in an America without his faith in its racism. He just wouldn’t be comfortable.
He is defined by his phantom vision of racism in America. This goes a long way towards explaining why he is one of the very few who can identify it and explain it, ad nauseum.
Clearly, Chauncey pretends to care about the black victim only when blacks are killed by whites. However, does Chauncey really care about Trayvon, the individual, or about Trayvon’s family?
My claim is that Chauncey does not. To him, Trayvon is just a means to his one, rather unique, end. In reality, Chauncey doesn’t give a shit about Trayvon anymore than he gives a shit about those who were killed in Chicago.
Don’t get me wrong, Paul. I get up every morning grateful for Liberals like you and Chauncey. Your worlds are both perverted – his by race, yours by your ‘special’ interpretation of the Constitution.
The arguments that you both construct are extra-worldly because of the delusions that you each must fabricate within which to debate. For example, in your case, that the Tenth Amendment was not designed to limit the power of the national government. In Chauncey’s case, that racial animus is pervasive and deeply ingrained in America.
If it weren’t for guys like you two, then the rest of us wouldn’t be rereading the Tenth Amendment, or reviewing our own encounters with those who do not share our racial heritage, as sanity checks. Of course, now that we all know you both better, these checks have become less necessary.
If it weren't for your representations of Liberalism, then this philosophy would have a better chance of prevailing. Instead, you both give Liberalism a bad name. Congratulations, as far as I can tell, both you and Chauncey are extraordinarily effective at this.
For a long while, Paul, I thought that I would never find one with an ego as big, and an intellect as small, as yours. Then Nancy Pelosi came along with her recent claim that “they” (e.g., the Democrats in the House of Representatives) knew exactly what they were doing when they passed ObamaCare.
Now, here comes Chauncey. Will my blessings ever cease?
Why do you keep addressing me?
Given your applied combination of general political and historical ignorance and your desire to be sure everyone knows it, at length, you are easily the biggest ideological moron on OS. I feel the pain expressed in and between your lines, but you will never be anything but a wailing little gnat's ass.
As to the humor of your comment, besides that you obviously don't know what racism means...or that you repeat your original stupid argument...or that you again display a laughable ignorance of the 10th...etc and etc...
You wail about the author applying a broad brush to paint Zimmerman, and then spend the rest of your wasted time slinging characterizations to and fro, up and down, back and forth, spinning, spitting and sputtering. As an argumentative artist, you're a regular Jackass Pollock.
You're not very intelligent or provocative or interesting or informed and you couldn't argue a point if you had a road map, a guide dog and somebody to speak for you. You're not unread or otherwise rejected because you're a "conservative," but because you simply aren't worthy of an audience.
These problems you have can't be cured by speaking "as if" you're some kind of intellectual force, or by dancing around your defeats and claiming victory. On a scale of 1 to 10 you're a whopping Who Cares?
You should find somebody with whom you can argue on a like-minded level. Do you have any grand children?
Good job on that you are right up there with the race baiters playing identity politics for their own personal gain.
You charge Chauncey is delusional for believing "that racial animus is pervasive and deeply ingrained in America", as you put it. My god, man, are you so foolish or unaware as to claim racial animus is NOT pervasive and deeply ingrained in America? If so, you are the one who is delusional.
I don't believe you're delusional, but if that's your position, you are surely in denial. I assume you've heard of the Southern Strategy, a disgusting and despicable political tactic that has been employed by every Republican Presidential candidate since Richard Nixon. Surely, you've heard of Lee Atwater. If not, read his "deathbed confession" and weep:
"Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
"The passive voice is a classic way of evading responsibility, or identifying those responsible for an act. It is the height of irony and insensitivity when Zimmerman uses the term "for the loss of your son," as if he had nothing to do with it. I'm with you all the way. Language matters."
Perhaps you missed the first three words of your comment. I switched from Deb to Debbie. Your writing seems to be that of a child.
No, I'm talking about most self-revealing bare naked white supremacist anger. So besides DeVega's incisive essays we are treated to the kind of public racism that only confirms what the man has said in his writings.
What's particularly interesting to me is that DeVega is not saying anything particularly radical. It seems that even pointing out the obvious, that racism is still well entrenched in the USA is considered to be racist in itself by the white supremacist community.
It does reflect on the changes that have taken place since the civil rights era. Back then, white supremacists proudly waved the flag of their delusions and literally stood their ground, like George Wallace in the schoolhouse door. Some still do, but many seem to publicly deny their own most strongly held inner beliefs, as if they have at least grasped that time has passed them by and stealth racism is their last great white hope.
Chauncey DeVega has the ability to flush this stealth racism out into the open and expose it to the world.
Racism within the white working class is to my mind, the greatest barrier we have in building a progressive movement that can be truly transformational. That's one of the reasons why the Rightwing has unleashed such a cruel campaign against the labor moment, which is where the difficulties of a multi-racial coalition are being worked out in practical terms everyday.
As long as working class people are hobbled by our racial and gender caste system, the 1% is safe. Racism evolved in 17th century America to divide black and white labor. Since then it has become structural and embedded in every aspect of American life, reproducing itself and changing with the times, like a virus that evolves. It's a fact of life that some people within working class ranks will desert the cause of justice for the increasingly meager white and male privileges that are still available.
I suppose we should pity them as we struggle against them, but as for me, I'm finding it increasingly hard to do so. Life is short and patience is not infinite.
My position on the issue that the author of this post seeks to conflate is stated above. Could it be that your inability to write is matched by a corresponding incapacity to read?
If you wanted to keep to the point, you should have accepted my correction graciously instead of posting a patently ridiculous defense.
“Ultimately, Zimmerman is a murderous clown. As such, and in keeping with the national tragedy and three ring circus that is the color line in America, Zimmerman will find martyrdom as he is a stand-in for every white conservative ever accused of racism or racial bias. During the days and weeks to come, the script will be flipped as he becomes the object of a cause celebre. In this grotesque play, George Zimmerman is the good man done wrong by the system. Trayvon Martin is simply collateral damage.”
The 911 call from Zimmerman to dispatch is the clincher. As a security guard, I know that standard procedure for dispatchers is to have watchmen like Zimmerman (or me) disengage from a situation when calling dispatch. I have encountered such a situation, myself, when facing 4 drunken individuals alone at 1:30 A.M. It is clear Zimmerman was directed in the same manner and did not disengage. Any prosecutor worth his weight should be able to nail Zimmerman with the 911 call and the other circumstantial evidence. There is no justification for Zimmerman’s actions except, as the author of this post indicates, “Zimmerman will find martyrdom as he is a stand-in for every white conservative ever accused of racism or racial bias.”
Anyone who doesn’t recognize that Zimmerman had no justification for his actions is delusional, either out of malice, or out of some sense of rebound reaction to the fact that Political Correctness is sometimes as distorted as Conservative Religion.
The comments in this thread, as well as the conservative talk-radio dialogue on this case prove the truth of the author’s paragraph cited at the opening of my comment.
That paragraph does speak a Great Truth. The evidence of that should include the fact that while most news organizations were all over this story, Fox had only one segment and the Drudge Report didn't carry the story at all.
The moment some evidence emerged that went towards supporting Zimmerman, the Rwing media lit up like a flashbulb. They went into Usual Suspects mode. Uncle Chris is a perfect example of the kind of low IQ diversionary attempts performed.
"Racism" becomes anything related to race in any way that conveniences their flawed argument. This leads to Chris' accusation of racism based on "words used" and the line: “Zimmerman is part of a collective consciousness that views all black people as adults regardless of their age.”
To charge racism, Chris first ignores that the word specifically describes race based hatred. Now it's anything that mentions race. Chris then MUST think that "collective consciousness" means All White People. But even if it did, it wouldn't be racism.
After an absurd rendition of Chauncey's "racism," Chris accuses him of a character flaw so obvious all should see it. What's obvious is that Chris is as much a victim of Rwing racial knee-jerk defensiveness as he is a proliferator. Chew through the ignorance and you're left with an attempt to defend racism by saying those who reject racism are racists. Why? Because they're talking about race!
Then we have the Murders of Black People Elsewhere canard. First up on the imbecilic list is that their True Believer task, subliminal though it may sometimes be, is asserting that Trayvon wasn't murdered.
Then, the imbecile has to ignore that we aren't hearing any stories out of Chicago where the known perpetrator wasn't charged with a crime. To launch the idiotic charge that Chauncey owes attention to those incidents reduces the issue to: A Black Person Died -- What's the Difference?
The extended stupidity is to say Chauncey is deficient because he didn't include "incidents that are not comparable" as a "balancing" element that puts the Trayvon story into "proper context."
I wouldn't describe the Chris regurgitation of common Rwing low IQ memes as "racist," but it is easily the kind of ignorance where racism finds purchase. He is a great example of the assertive ignorance that well describes the Rwing in general or, similarly, a broken-winged bird flopping in circles, loudly squawking.
The problem with citing Zimm ignoring the dispatcher and following Tray is it's not unlawful. It can go towards building a case with a stronger element that would hopefully negate or mitigate a firm SYG defense. But unless that can be shown and convinces a jury, the legal point will pivot on the fight and shooting and will be described by a time measured in seconds.
I've described Zimm as a psycho wannabe cop/hero and know he's responsible for the whole sad incident. However, the problem with having the law put him in his place is the SYG law is as flawed as he is.
I have to give it to you. Deb missed the entire point, lost the argument and at last resort descended in to chewing gum world of women.
She made it a gender failure on your behalf... called you a troll.. This is typical on Salon. If what she says, where she wants and how she wants is blathering, then she should expect to be criticized.
You were not unduly rude. Just to the point.
I cant believe how racist those white voters in Iowa were to select him over Hillary Clinton.
If you review a transcript of the phone call, you see that most of it is about Zman trying to give Martin's location to the police. For a brief time Zman follows Martin -- not because he wants to confront him, but because he wants to tell the police where Martin is. The dispatcher says "we don't need you to do that.' Zman responds "Ok."
At that point Zman stops following Martin, and the phone conversation changes to a different topic. The dispatcher and Zman are talking about where the police are going to meet him. The dispatcher asks where Zman is parked. He says "I don't know. It's a cut-through so I don't know the address."
He doesn't know the address, because no street addresses are visible from where he is. Zman arranges to have the police call him when they get there. The dispatcher has already told Zman that the police are on the way." A few seconds later the phone call ends.
So at this point Zman is supposed to meet the police. But there's a problem: he doesn't know what address to give them. So he sets off on foot in order to find out what street address he is near. According to Zman, after he had gotten the address and was on his way back to his vehicle, that's when Martin confronted HIM. In other words, Martin, rather than going on to the house where he was staying, doubles back in order to confront Zman.
What is the evidence of this? If you look at a map of that housing development, you can see that the distance from where Martin would have entered the housing development when coming back from the store, to the house was he was staying, was not very far. According to Google Maps, that distance could be covered in 4 minutes on foot. Zimmerman's phone call to the police was 4 minutes 5 seconds long. In other words, if Zimmerman called the police at the exact second that Martin entered the area, Martin would have been home before Zman finished his phone call -- IF Martin had gone home. But he didn't. He apparently decided to confront Zman, and not just confront him but attack him, and he does that while Zman is walking back to his vehicle.
Did Zman follow Martin with the intent to injure or kill him? In order to believe that, you have to ignore much of the phone call, and the entire context of the last part of the call. You have to also believe that Zman intended to commit a felony while knowing that the police are about to arrive -- after he himself called them -- AND he is expecting a call from the police at any time! You have to believe that he suddenly decided not to locate an address that he could give the police, after having an entire phone conversation based on contacting the police. You have to believe that Zman intended to shoot Martin by first getting into a fistfight with Martin, an athletic high-school football player taller than Zman and with a longer reach. And finally, you have to believe that even though Zman called 911 45 times before in similar situations and never got into an altercation, for some strange reason he decided to get into a fight this time.
In summary, the "evil white man plotting to kill the angelic black child" theory simply makes no sense, and is inconsistent with what we know of the evidence at this point. And all of Chauncey's race-baiting doesn't change that.
If we believe the girl, and phone records confirm she was on line with Tray, then Zimmerman lied. Having lied, he is discredited. Being discredited doesn't help. I believe the girl, so I think Zimmerman is a liar.
So much for Zimm's "Have you got a problem? Well you do now"...POW! quoting of Trayvon, and the ambush story.
If the girl isn't lying, your version of events falls apart in total, so it's not exactly the solid case you make it out to be. You forgot the other phone call that factors into the scenario.
That aside, Zimm is still afforded the SYG defense, even if he did start the fight. So, while your version can be believed or discredited, it doesn't really matter if the point the SYG defense applies is when Zimm is on the ground and Tray is on top.
That aside, Zimmerman is still enough of a psychotic cop wannabe that he has no true defense, beyond the law, for being an irresponsible bit of subhuman smegma.
If the girl is right, then I'd say Zimm didn't want Tray to get away, and asserted the cop wannabe authority to act when denied submission. He could do that because he truly assumed Tray wasn't armed and he knew he was. The guy is a cowardly nutball, and his past history reinforces that assessment.
I like my version better.
The phone call with the girlfriend adds nothing to the account I've presented, except a little conversation, which is also consistent. For example, at one point Zimmerman said that he lost sight of Martin. The girlfriend says that at one point Martin told her that he had "lost" Zimmerman. I'm happy to include the conversation in my account, because it really doesn't change anything.
I didn't include it initially because I don't trust the information. With Zimmerman's call there is an actual recording, so there is no question as to what was said. Interpretations may differ, but at least we know what was said. In contrast, the girls's account is hearsay (legally admissible, no doubt, but hearsay nonetheless). We don't know what Trayvon said to her; all we have is what she said that he said. The conversation was brought to light three weeks after the shooting, at the same time the Martin family attorneys were pushing for an arrest. At this point we don't know who the girl is or her background. We don't know if her testimony was tainted by what she heard about the case in the interval between the shooting and when the call content was reported. I'm not saying that she's lying. I'm saying that her information is less certain than much of the other evidence. We really need to see what an attorney will do with her testimony on cross examination.
But don't take my word for any of this. A number of people have produced maps of the area. I took a Google map, marked the earliest point at which Martin could have entered the housing development, and measured that against the location of the house where he was staying. As I said, that's a four-minute walk. Zman's phone call was slightly longer than 4 minutes. Martin should have been home even before Zman was off the phone.
Others have noted the same thing. An article by Eric Zorn in the Chicago Tribune notes the same issue: "Where is Martin? At just a normal walking pace of three miles per hour, he would be home by the time Zimmerman hangs up with police at 7:13:41 p.m."
Let me put it a different way. The only reason that Martin was anywhere near Zimmerman is because Martin chose to be. If he truly feared Zimmerman, as the girlfriend implies, why didn't Martin just walk home? He could have been home at a normal walking pace; he wouldn't even have to run. He would have been home, and Zimmerman would have been far away.
It would not be unusual for someone who being followed by a scary stranger to NOT want to bring the scary guy to their home. You sure are reaching hard for Zimmerman and not giving any thought at all to what a 17 year old kid might be feeling in such a situation. Trust me, it would be fear.
Thanks for posting the Atwater quotation for the 80th time. It must give you a great deal of comfort and security to generalize your interpretation of one paragraph to the characteristics you imagine are attributable to millions who neither think nor believe as you do.
Nevertheless, we would all like to see your proof that racism is pervasive and deeply ingrained in America.
Now, Tom, a final note. Apparently, I will never lose money underestimating PJOR’s intelligence or overestimating his stupidity. His question regarding why I addressed him is moronic for the simple reason that anyone, including Chauncey, can scroll up and look at who engaged whom. He has often whined about my not “engaging” him; and now he whines about it when I do.
My hope is that your responses will be of much higher quality than his were.
That said, the snark, the "ad hominem" comments, the "slut" and "troll" usages in the interplay among comments ... they do bother me. Is this (to borrow the usage from one comment-er) REALLY, REALLY, necessary? Just because the issues here are stark ... and keyboard access is quick ... MUST WE? Must we "talk to" (or argue with) people this way?
It seems to me the issues in all of this deserve the seriousness of comment intrinsic in the issues themselves, not least to say the death of one person by another person's gun. Well, this is my third attempt at a comment and I scratched the earlier two but this one I'm going to post any way. ?!
I ask why you address me because you never respond to my deconstruction of your irrelevant blathering. I don't need to add to my previous points about your laughable attempts at argument. And let's not pretend I'm the only one who has you pegged as a dolt. You've done a good job of spreading that news around here.
You're irrelevant, predictable and dismissed. When I need to wipe my floor again I'll hit your whiny button.
mish,
I don't see why you think a recorded conversation that does not involve the initial contact is particularly revealing. I'd go with the ear-witness who heard the contact and doesn't have the same motivation to lie as somebody who just killed and is without doubt looking for any way out. Further, we know Tray was on the phone at the point of contact, so the idea he's talking while stalking and attacking Zimmerman is a bit beyond far-fetched.
Anyway, that is about what public perception of Zimmerman some may have. Again, it's superfluous if the lone legal issue is SYG as the fight ensued, as the case will then hinge on that moment. If that's the case yours or mine or anyone's analysis of what happened before won't mean anything to the outcome.
By the way, and not that you say this isn't true, but Trayvon had no duty to walk home in a direct line as quickly as possible. If he didn't, it has no bearing on anything other than giving Zimm the opportunity to play cop/hero.
But I still don't get why some bend over backwards to defend a guy who is obviously more than a half bubble off plumb, riding around with a gun, looking for suspicious people. That is pretty much an invitation for something going really wrong. It reeks of psychotic cop/hero wannabe, the kind of guy whose heightened anticipation of heroic events tends to create them because they get tired of waiting.
Zimmerman first agrees to meet the dispatched police unit at “the mailboxes’ and then, just before hanging up, he says, something to the effect of “…have them call me and I’ll tell them where I am.” The situation is one in which he is tracking someone who doesn’t need to be tracked, the dispatcher tells him not to do this, he agrees, then at the last minute disagrees and continues to track and hangs up. Why did he hang up? There was no reason to hang up. How difficult is it to find an address if he’s familiar with the area? None of Zimmerman’s account makes any sense.
What does this mean: “…if Zimmerman called the police at the exact second that Martin entered the area, Martin would have been home before Zman finished his phone call …”? At the exact second? It’s clear from the 911 call that is not the case. Zimmerman had been observing Martin “walking around”. What does any of that have to do with anything? What was Martin DOING that instigated this entire event? “Walking around”. Holy shit, people, can we just look at THAT?! He was “walking around”, talking on his cell phone, eating Skittles and drinking a pop.
And for doing that, he should be responsible for being accosted? For doing that, he should think he should go home when he sees somebody else? I’ll tell you what, if I were out walking around, eating Skittles, drinking a pop, talking on my cell phone with my girl friend (my wife in my case), and noticed somebody following me, I would get defensive. But Martin did not; he ran.
Mish is saying Martin did not run, but on the 911 tape, Zimmerman states clearly, “Shit, he’s runnin’.” That is when Zimmerman pursues him. The dispatcher asks, “Which way is he running?” and Zimmerman responds, “Down towards the …uh, entrance to the neighborhood.” Dispatch asks which entrance, and Zimmerman replies, “The back entrance.” The dispatcher asks, “Are you following him?” Zimmerman says he is and the dispatcher says, “Okay, we don’t need you to do that.” So what we get from this, irrefutably, is that Martin is running AWAY FROM Zimmerman, and had Zimmerman followed the directions of the dispatcher, there would be no murder.
Further, looking at the map, we see that Martin was headed toward his father’s girlfriend’s home within the neighborhood where Trayvon was staying at the time – in other words, he was headed home. EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE suggests that Martin did nothing wrong, that he was merely walking to his father’s girlfriend’s house (his home) while eating Skittles and drinking pop, while talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, and Zimmerman accosted him. What we see by looking at the map and the paths taken by each, we see that Zimmerman, by virtue of having a better knowledge of the neighborhood, “headed him (Martin) off at the pass”, as the saying goes, standing between Martin and his home.
If the “SYG” law is firm, and has even the remotest value at all, then it is Zimmerman who violated it, not Martin, and Martin’s murder is a travesty. If the district attorney can’t convict on this, he should resign or be terminated, he should be disbarred and lobby AGAINST this absurd, obscene law.
It’s important to remember that Zimmerman is not a police officer, and the evidence clearly reveals that he is solely responsible for this pathetic display of American culture. And those defending his actions should be ashamed. If there is any law in the land that justifies shooting an unarmed individual after the shooter is the instigator, and a prosecutor can’t get a conviction out of that, then there is no need for police, for courts, for laws in general. We can just walk up to an unarmed anybody, pick a fight, and kill that person when they retaliate. The insanity of so many defending this is overwhelming. Paul O’Rourke is right; the only thing standing in the way of justice in this case is the law – the SYG LAW.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20120412/NEWS01/120412018/Prosecutors-Zimmerman-ignored-dispatcher-warning
The dispatcher asks where his truck is parked. Zimmerman doesn't know, because with the layout of this housing development none of the street addresses are visible.
Rick: "What does this mean: '…if Zimmerman called the police at the exact second that Martin entered the area, Martin would have been home before Zman finished his phone call …'?"
What many people have noted is that if Martin were doing nothing but walking home, then he easily would have been home even before Zimmerman finished his phone call. Here there are two theories of what happened: you say that Martin was not really trying to get home. He was just walking around and chatting with his girlfriend on the phone. The other theory is that Martin didn't go home because he decided to double back and confront the guy who had been eyeballing and following him. As far as I can tell, both theories are consistent with the evidence we have at this point. It just depends on what theory you find most compelling.
Rick: "Mish is saying Martin did not run, but on the 911 tape, Zimmerman states clearly, “Shit, he’s runnin’.” That is when Zimmerman pursues him."
He does run. Certainly he doesn't run home. We know that because the distance to his house was very short. Had he run home, he would have been home.
Rick: "So what we get from this, irrefutably, is that Martin is running AWAY FROM Zimmerman, and had Zimmerman followed the directions of the dispatcher, there would be no murder."
Again, we end up with two different theories. In Zimmerman's account, when the dispatcher said "we don't need you to do that," at that point Zimmerman stopped following Martin and instead focused on locating a street address. The last part of the phone call is all about where Zimmerman is going to meet the police.
Zimmerman had every reason to be suspicious of Trayvon Martin. An article in the U.S. News and World Report talks about that:
---------------------------
"At least eight burglaries were reported within Twin Lakes in the 14 months prior to the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to the Sanford Police Department. Yet in a series of interviews, Twin Lakes residents said dozens of reports of attempted break-ins and would-be burglars casing homes had created an atmosphere of growing fear in the neighborhood.
"In several of the incidents, witnesses identified the suspects to police as young black men. Twin Lakes is about 50 percent white, with an African-American and Hispanic population of about 20 percent each, roughly similar to the surrounding city of Sanford, according to U.S. Census data. . . . "
"Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.
"'Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'm black, OK?' the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. 'There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,' she said. 'That's why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.'"
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The article goes on to detail a number of crimes in that housing development committed by young black males, including one home invasion in which two black men burglarized a home while a woman fled to an upstairs bedroom with her infant son.
This is the context and the reason why Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin.
Zimmerman was suspicious of many things , and constantly so. He has a long record of police contacts, most over extremely minor 'suspicions."
He sees Tray, calls the police. Other than Tray was black, his behavior was not suspicious. Already we have Zimmerman framing Tray as a possible criminal. At this point, and because there was absolutely nothing to suggest Tray was about to or was in the act of committing a crime, Zimm could have simply identified himself and asked what Tray was doing. However, that wouldn't provide the needed reinforcement of Zimmy's vision of himself as Lord Protector of the Neighborhood. There is ample evidence to back the claim Zimm took his title and rank overly seriously.
Instead, Zimmerman continues to act suspiciously and stalks Tray.
Now it's Tray who has every reason to be suspicious. At this point, whatever he does to distance himself from the headcase following him adds to Zimm's now self-fulfilling and very lax requirement of "suspicion."
Now Zimm's self-induced irrational suspicion leads him to get out of the car to pursue Tray, as certainly he's running because he's guilty. "These assholes always get away..." but not this time! Oh no, Zimm will make sure of that!
The call recording has a few periods of a clicking-knocking sound between comments from a distracted Zimmerman. I would bet the sounds come from Zimm running, jogging, intermittently.
Nothing about the call shows Zimm breaking off pursuit and returning to his car. In fact, when Zimm requests they contact him when they arrive, rejecting the idea of meeting him at the mailbox, it indicates the reverse--that his intention was to pursue and then have the police find him.
Your timeline theory is fairly useless in supporting your point as we do not know the time involved with the final contact. You don't know if Tray hid from Zimm at some point, and rightfully so. Perhaps as he started down the cut-through, he decided to double back to shake Zimm, who he would logically presume would drive around the building to where the cut-off leads. In the 3 minutes from the time Zimm called until the girlfriend calls and the point where she hears the contact and the line goes dead, many things could have happened. The timeline/linear scenario is very weak and not at all defining of what "probably" happened.
The upshot of it all is Zimmerman created the situation that ended up with Tray's death out of thin air. Zimm's cop/hero wannabe psychosis goes a long way in defining why he acted so insanely irresponsibly---and lied about it---and intentionally misinterpreted a situation to meet his fantasy. But none of that psychological profile excuses what he did. The law may coddle him, but the asshole is a punk-assed coward who killed a kid for no good reason.